Cobbs Corner Roundabout (part 3)

If you are not up to speed on this issue - read <this> first!

Well, who was to blame for the fiasco?

Pat Trembath (chair of the Sydenham Society) writes:

September 9th’s Sydenham Road Regeneration Partnership provided an opportunity for the community to express their anger at the 10 months of chaos caused by roadworks at Cobbs Corner. Representatives from Transco and Lewisham’s Highways Department were sitting uncomfortably in the “hot seat” in order to explain what went wrong to angry local residents.

Transco were exonerated early on in the discussion – they had informed Lewisham that during 2004/5 they intended to do priority replacement gas main work throughout the main roads of Sydenham eighteen months previously. They had been unable to give an exact date for commencement as they need to address emergencies as they arise.

The spotlight then turned on Lewisham Highways officers Darien Goodwin, Head of Highways, and Tom Henry. Why plan a second set of major roadworks, knowing that Transco’s was planned? The answer was money for a Pedestrian Accident Scheme from Transport for London was available, but it had to be spent during the fiscal year 2003/4. So Highways decided to go ahead with their scheme.

The quality of work and the management of the contract was questioned closely. It was plain to residents that the original design was faulty as the roundabout was being damaged daily by buses and lorries even as it was being built. Residents were told that remedial work had been done to the islands, originally lengthened to narrow the road and then cut back to widen them again! Although the design of the roundabout was obviously faulty this was not admitted, and Highways claimed credit for taking the opportunity of the Transco traffic signals to demolish it and rebuild the latest and unloved roundabout.

No excuses were offered for poor management of the contract with machinery lying idle for weeks on end in car parking bays with the absence of workmen doing a full day’s work obvious to everyone.

Despite the fact that the roundabout is the entrance to Sydenham Town, criticism of it as ugly, tilting, undulating was brushed aside. Darien Goodwin did offer to explore the possibility of “greening” it at the very end meeting after continued sarcastic comments as to its aesthetic charms.

Whether the Pedestrian Accident Scheme has achieved its objective in slowing down the traffic and persuading residents to use the, as yet to be completed, zebra crossing remains to be seen. People are still dodging cars as they cross the road using the island refuges, and there are still concerns that evening train commuters, disembarking 150-200 at a time, will not be prepared to wait bunched together on the narrow pavement on the railway bridge in order to cross Sydenham Road.

If this is the case as local residents suspect then the past 10 months of misery for Sydenham, residents and traders, will have been for naught – a highly costly project to community charge and business rate payers alike, and the industrial style roundabout will remain as a permanent reminder of Lewisham Highways Department’s expensive fiasco.

The webmaster writes:

Not just 10 months! It became apparent that Cobb's Roundabout may just be the start of 6 years of 'improvements' to Sydenham roads. These include further gas works in Sydenham Road, the strengthening of the railway bridge, traffic calming and resident parking schemes (in the Thorpes?).

While some of these are essential and some may be desirable - the feeling of the residents and traders is that there is that the Cobbs Corner experience gave no confidence in the Council's ability to implement or manage the consequences of these schemes effectively.

Read our previous gripe <here>